TRANSLATION MATTHEW 10: 16

See this!- I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves. Be as cunning as snakes and as harmless as doves. Be alert amongst people for they will hand you over to councils of judgement and flog you in their synagogues. You will be taken before rulers and kings on account of my name, as a witness to them and to the gentiles. When they hand you over, do not worry about how to speak or what to say, for you will be given what to say in that hour; then you are not speaking but the spirit of your Father is speaking through you.

Brother will hand over brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against parents and put them to death; and you will be hated by all on account of my name, but the one who endures to the end will be rescued. When they harrass you in one town, flee to another. Amen I tell you, you will not complete your round of the towns of Israel, before the Son of Man arrives.

A pupil is not above the teacher, nor a slave above his master. It is enough for a pupil to be like his teacher and a slave like his master. If they have charged the head of the house with the name of Beelzebul, how much more will they abuse the members of his household!

In his narrative, Matthew relates the popularity of Jesus amongst his people, whereas in the teaching which accompanies the sending out of the pupils, the social environment is hostile. The issue is the ‘name of Jesus’, which may mean literally his name as such, or it may refer to his reputation, or indeed, both. The gospels depict the people’s hostility to Jesus in the events of his trial and death, but there is no circumstance in his life which matches the hostility described here. It is reasonable therefore, unless we simply attribute an antagonistic vision of the future to Jesus, to look for a schism between Jesus’ followers and orthodox Judaism in the time of ‘Matthew’, say between 75 and 90 CE. Eventually Christians were excluded or excluded themselves from synagogues, but before exclusion there would have been the growth of disagreement, suspicion and accusation amongst the people, and perhaps especially between family members.

Some scholars say there is evidence for a Jewish exclusion of sectarian elements including “ Nazareans“ as the Rabbis began to rebuild a Judaism without a temple after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70CE. The Talmud quotes a prayer, supposedly from that era, which excludes various sects from the ‘book of life’. This evidence is used to build up a picture of a Jewish inspired enmity with Christians. That is a doubtful construct, as the Talmud dates from centuries later, and there is in any case no way of confirming that Nazareans = Christians.

The issue is important: the gospels all display elements of prejudice against Jewish religious leaders, especially the Pharisees, whose vision of a Judaism based on synagogue and teaching rather than temple sacrifice, was taken up by leading Rabbis after the destruction of the temple. Did controversy in the time of the writing of the gospels get read back into the life of Jesus? And did it get exaggerated to include all Jews/ Judaeans as they are named in the Gospel of John?

Eventually this New Testament material led to the absurd accusation that the Jews as a race were guilty of “deicide”, namely the killing of the Son of God on the cross, by Roman theologians who conveniently forgot it was Romans who killed Jesus. Much more seriously it gave an excuse for generations of European Christians to persecute Jews, down to and including Nazis and Facists.

My readers may feel all this is a far cry from Matthew chapter 10, but it’s incumbent on bible readers to decide a) Did the suspicion towards official Judaism start with Jesus himself? b) If not, did it start with the Gospel writers, especially Matthew and John? c) If either, how can Christians live honestly with their tradition?

The passage itself has many vivid expressions, which as a bible reader I can say ‘sound like Jesus.’ “Sheep among wolves….. cunning as snakes, harmless as doves…. do not be worried about how to speak…..the one who endures to the end will be rescued…a pupil is not above his teacher.” But perhaps Matthew and others had become expert in writing in the voice of Jesus.

Matthew presents Jesus as giving tough advice for a tough mission. His ambassadors will be surrounded by opposition, their very lives will be at risk, courage and endurance will be required, rescue will not come before the end. I think this end is THE END, the time when the Son of Man, the definitive bearer of Gods Rule, will arrive. I recognise some of the prophetic language here as appropriate to the end time: “brother against brother, father against child, children against parents, these sound like some of the apocalyptic sufferings which, it was thought, would precede the end.

Probably this end-time langauge means that Matthew saw the mission of Jesus’ ambassadors as an offer of citzenship in God’s Rule just before the end of this evil age and the start of the world to come. And as the ministry of the teacher and master had been marked by opposition and suffering, so their ministry would likewise be marked. If he meant this passage as a job description for missionaries, I don’t imagine there were many applicants.